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 | POOR GREG DROWNING
| East Coast Premiere |
| Cast: | Graham Sibley, Christine Woods, Jenny O'Hara, Laura Seay, George Basil, Kevin Daniels, Deborah S. Craig, Jeremy Luke, Luke Greenfield, Assaf Cohen , Sarah Baldwin, Ajay Mehta , Marguerite Insolia, Andrew Dits | | Crew: | Producers: Jeffrey Scott Collins, Jessica Kraby, Andrew Topper - Screenwriters: Jeffrey Scott Collins -
| | Email: | jscollins21 gmail.com |
synopsis
POOR GREG DROWNING is a grounded R-rated comedy with genuine heart and romance. Greg is a love addict whose girlfriend left him for their couples therapist. Depressed, heartbroken, and unemployed, Greg must find a roommate to help pay rent. But Greg scares all potential roommates away, except for a girl named Peyton who moves in and whom Greg falls madly in love with.
director
Jeffrey Scott Collins' love for filmmaking began as a young child when he created short films in his free time. He carried this passion into his high school cinematography class, where several of his short films were selected to various film festivals. After high school, Jeff attended the University of Arizona and Boston College where he majored in accounting. To keep his creative spirit alive, Jeff created several school-related films for various classes and wrote his first feature script entitled, "In The End".
Following college, Jeff worked in accounting at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the entertainment division. Jeff then worked at MLB Network as a Financial Analyst for a year, before he transitioned to the finance group at HBO. After learning the business side of the industry, Jeff started his own production company, This Seems Reel Entertainment, and completed his first short film in eight years, "Let It Bleed", in the beginning of 2011. Jeff wrote, produced, directed, shot, and edited the film, which was selected to the 2011 Hoboken International Film Festival and named one of 2011's "Best Internet Videos" by Internet Video Magazine. After this success, Jeff transitioned to the Creative Services group at HBO where he was a production coordinator, before being accepted to and completing the Film and TV Production Institute at UCLA in Los Angeles.
Just prior to attending UCLA, Jeff completed his next short film, "10 Years Later". The film premiered at HBO and garnered the attention of several prominent film producers and agents that contacted Jeff about the feature version, which is currently deep in the development process. Jeff concluded 2012 with numerous freelance projects, including assistant directing and editing a Nickelodeon commercial, editing a feature doc called "Foreign Eye in the Storm", which was accepted to a number of film festivals and distributed on Amazon, producing and directing AFI's video coverage of the 2012 AFI Festival, as well as dedicating a portion of his time as a development intern for Robert Zemeckis and his company, ImageMovers.
Since then, Jeff has worked with three highly successful writer/directors. In Spring of 2013, Jeff worked with Victor Levin on his feature film, "5 to 7". The film stars Anton Yelchin, Berenice Marlohe, Olivia Thirlby, Glenn Close, and Frank Langella, and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was distributed by IFC. Julie Lynn and Bonnie Curtis of Mockingbird Pictures produced the film.
Afterward, Jeff worked with writer/director, Luke Greenfield, on his Fox feature, "Let's Be Cops", which stars Jake Johnson, Damon Waynes Jr, Nina Dobrev, Keegan-Michael Key, and Andy Garcia. Jeff also ran Luke's development company, WideAwake ("Role Models", "Let's Be Cops") as the Head of Development during this time.
After working with Luke, Jeff began working with writer/director, John Hamburg ("I Love You, Man", "Along Came Polly", "Meet the Parents") in October 2014. Jeff was John's director's assistant on the Fox feature film, "Why Him?", which was released over Christmas weekend 2016 and stars Bryan Cranston, James Franco, Megan Mullaly, Zoey Deutch, and Keegan-Michael Key.
Jeff also wrote, directed, and produced his first feature film, "Poor Greg Drowning", in 2016. The project initially began as a short film turned web series called, "Glimpses of Greg", which Jeff wrote, directed, and produced as well, and was then picked up as a feature film which will be completed at the end of 2017. Jeff has also been busy writing and developing several other feature and TV projects.
Filmography
filmmaker's note
POOR GREG DROWNING is a grounded comedy about heartache, loss, depression, friendship, family, and love addiction. It’s about picking oneself up from rock bottom with the help of those closest to them. It explores looking in the mirror, and learning to forgive those that have hurt you.
I think what makes PGD so unique is that it has elements of a real comedy (grounded comedy that was greatly inspired by the three tremendous directors that I worked for, Victor Levin, Luke Greenfield, and John Hamburg), but also has the heart and character of a true indie festival film. The struggles that the main character, Greg, goes through with love addiction are surprisingly untapped in comedies like this. It was inspired by a very dark place in my life that I went through ten years ago. My high school sweetheart
of five years and I broke up a week before graduation from college, which contributed to my first experience with severe depression and heartache (much like Greg).
I believe this film encompasses the spirit of what makes film festivals and indie filmmaking so special. I saw Mark Duplass' incredibly inspirational speech at SXSW where he said, “There’s no excuse not to make films on weekends with friends’”. The next weekend, I shot a 5 min short film in two hours for $25 (the cost of a pizza for everyone) called GLIMPSES OF GREG. The film was accepted to several festivals. But I knew there was so much more of Greg’s story to tell.
So, I wrote a feature called POOR GREG DROWNING. I was working full time and didn't have money to shoot an entire feature film, so I decided to shoot the script piecemeal on the weekends and potentially create a comedy web series. Over the course of a year, we shot 44 pages for $8k.
And then... a miracle happened! A finance guy from Chicago that I met randomly at Sundance, as well as the CEO of Cast & Crew, saw the footage of PGD and both decided to invest in the film. We determined that we could finish shooting the script for $42k. So, a little over a year after we shot the short (which is now the first scene of the feature film), we shot the remaining 56 pages of the script in two long weekends. So, in total, POOR GREG DROWNING was shot in 15 shooting days and will have a total budget after post of $50k. I hope the story of how this film was made inspires other filmmakers to do the same (much like Mark Duplass did for me).
I hope you guys enjoy this film as much as we enjoyed making it. It has been a true labor of love for everyone involved, and we are extremely excited to share it with the world. And it would be an absolute honor and privilege to screen it with all of you!
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